Ryan - At mamas knee: mothers and race in black and white

At Mamas Knee

At Mamas Knee

Mothers and Race in Black and White

April Ryan

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

978-1-4422-6563-9 (cloth)

978-1-4422-6564-6 (electronic)

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Printed in the United States of America

Foreword

I hope youve seen April Ryan on Hardball . Shes one of the stars of the program. Informed, passionate and totally in the moment, she brings joy as well as sharp reporting. Most of you know that already. The fact is we have a lot of fun, not just on air but during commercials when youre not watching. Our lively conversation gets going before we even get out of the make-up room.

But there is a serious side to my colleague, deadly serious. When the topic goes to whats happening on the streets of this country, shes not kidding around. When it comes to the dangers facing young African Americans, its life and death.

Telling their story in these pages is April Ryan, my colleague in national journalism. Here she writes from experience about life in a city she heads back to after covering the politics of Washington.

In the spring of 2015, Baltimore had its own big story to tell. It was the pictures of Freddie Gray being hauled into a Baltimore police wagon. It was the relentless TV footage of rioting teens racing across streets, smashing store windows, challenging police lines.

How do you save your children from all of that? Thats the question April Ryan asks. Youre coming home from work in the nations capital, driving through these same troubled Baltimore streets. How do you protect your own from this?

In At Mamas Knee: Mothers and Race in Black and White , Ryan lays it out for us. She lets grown-up children tell how they were raised on streets just like these. We hear from President Barack Obama, Senator Cory Booker, Valerie Jarrett, also from mothers who couldnt save their children no matter how hard they tried. We learn of the unique grace of the authors own mother.

We learn, too, about The Talk. Its when an African American father takes his young son aside and tells him the facts of life for African Americans, how a single encounter with police can be deadly.

For many of us, this is something weve never had to deal with. Our dad told my brothers and I to say officer if we got stopped driving. Being polite and respectful was a way to avoid a ticket. April Ryan and other parents have to give such warnings if only to keep their kids from getting killed.

Theres something basic here. Young people think everything they do is brand new, that theyre the first person who ever did it. Parents know differently. Theyve seen it all before, maybe tried it themselves. They desperately try to warn of the trouble to come. Its hard and sometimes it just doesnt work.

But its the parents God-given place to try.

Ryan writes, As my mother would tell me, a good mother is her childs biggest supporter and the harshest critic, able to speak truth when needed, and support even when unwanted.

For Black people, society has taught us we must prepare our children because if we dont, the world will teach the lessons with no compassion.

This is a book for all to read. Its about tough love where the stakes are life and death.

Read what my colleague has to say. The stranger this world is to us, the more important it is for us to learn it.

Chris Matthews

Host of MSNBCs Hardball

Introduction

F or the past fifteen-plus years, from pregnancy to giving birth, I have never felt more responsibility in any capacity than that of being a mother. Looking back over the journey of motherhood, it is incredible! There are days I want to shout from the mountaintops about the marvels of being the mother of two wonderfully talented girls. On some other days the challenges are hard, and I even wonder if I have the stamina for the long haul. But I am built for this. I am a mother! What a great and God-given reward.

The job of a mother is tremendous. I found that out when I delivered my first child. After a very difficult pregnancy and then years later, while attempting to make ends meet, I seriously pondered how my mother was able to pull it all together and do it with a smile.

I am so grateful I was afforded the chance to tell my mother thank you for her mothering and her great example. We had that conversation years before her death. I never understood how she did it, calmly and with her unique grace. It wasnt easy, as I was a very excitable child and am still excitable today! After she figured out how to handle me, she doubled her love of children seven years later with the birth of my baby brother. That baby brother is now towering more than one full foot in height over his big sister. How funny is that?

But getting back to my thankful conversation with my mom, I told her thank you for all of the advice, from teaching me about the how-tos of tax season all the way to forming our private two-member stock investment club to how to build my business. My mother, from the moment I was born, was with me every step of the way. In fact, we were so close that we talked several times a day. We talked about everything. My mother wanted to make sure I was ready for the world. Just in daily conversation, my mother would discuss current events and, in some instances, how race played a big part in many issues. My mother wanted me to live in a world of equality, yet understand the realities of the present day. The reality is that we are Black. She offered historical notes about what our Blackness has encountered, but she also offered pride in our contributions, the contributions that so many Black people have given to the world. When we were in the car, she would remind us that Garrett Morgan, an African American inventor, is credited with creating the traffic light... and the gas mask. She also told us about Charles Drew who helped shape our current blood donation system, and George Washington Carver and his agricultural advance with the peanut. She and my father worked hard to give me and my brother a life that was more diverse and afforded more opportunities than what they were afforded. However, she also wanted her children to be mindful and aware of who we are. My mother spoke of race with the facts, and it always came straight from the heart.

Race can be legislated, but it is really a heart issue. As the Bible says, As a man thinketh so is he. So who better to help us navigate the waters of this sometimes-murky issue than mothers, as they are a childs first teacher, nurturer, protector, and influencer? A mothers love is awe-inspiring, but the power does not always have to come from a birth mother. You will read in these pages of women who have given birth and some who have not, but who still have helped in the village and the sisterhood of mothers and how they can and do shape the mind-set of generations.